Pressure crushing of a rigid perfectly plastic tube (Q2277119)

The collapse of a circular tube due to external pressure is important in many practical situations such as deep-sea pipelines, underground conduits, vacuum tubings and blood vessels. The large deformation of a thin perfectly elastic tube was studied by \textit{I. Tadjbakhsh} and \textit{F. Odeh} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 18, 59-74 (1967; Zbl 0148.195)], \textit{J. E. Flaherty}, \textit{J. B. Keller}, and \textit{S. I. Rubinow} [SIAM J. Appl. Math. 23, 446-455 (1972; Zbl 0249.73046)]. As pressure (difference) increases beyond some critical pressure, the circular tube is compressed into a flattened middle region where the wall collapses onto itself, and two side channels. In this note we shall investigate the opposite extreme, i.e., the collapse of a rigid-perfectly plastic tube. Such a model approximates tubes made of reinforced concrete, metal matrix composites, fiber epoxies, etc. As we shall see later, the postbuckling behavior is quite different from that of a perfectly elastic tube.